The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post
“The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement” [Hake (2011)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Why Minnesotans Excel at Math and Other Mysteries of the Nation's Report Card” [Hake (2011)], EDDRA2’s Gary Ravani wrote (paraphrasing): “That children in Minnesota and Massachusetts excel at math could be explained by the fact that those two states have child poverty rates (14% and 15% respectively) well below the national rate of 22%.”

The overriding influence of poverty on educational achievement has recently been noted in, e.g. (alphabetical order by author):

a. Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances [Duncan & Murnane (2011)] at http://bit.ly/nCkmKv;

b. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2” [Hake (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn;

c. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” [Ladd & Fiske (2011)] at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub;

d. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality” [Marder (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/fjUquC;

e. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data” [Marder (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF;

f. “The hard bigotry of low expectations and low priorities” [Ravani (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/sUZ17T;

g. “Unaddressed Link Between Poverty & Education” [Schaffer (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tbckql.
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To access the complete 9 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/tUU65W.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“. . .let's not pretend that family background does not matter and can be overlooked. Let's agree that we know a lot about how to address the ways in which poverty undermines student learning. Whether we choose to face up to that reality is ultimately a moral question.”
Ladd & Fiske (2011)

REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 14 Dec 2011.]
Hake, R.R. 2011. “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/tUU65W. Post of 14 Dec 2011 09:56:02-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Ladd, H.E. & E.B. Fiske. 2011. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” New York Times Opinion Piece, 11 Dec; online at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2

Some blog followers might be interested in “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: ARN-L’s Bob Schaeffer (2011) in a post “Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” alluded to a Chicago Tribune Op. Ed. http://bit.ly/rv3rMO of that title by Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane (2011a), drawn from a book http://bit.ly/nCkmKv Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances [Duncan & Murnane (2011)].

Regarding the influence of economic inequality on K-12 education, some subscribers might also be interested in these six items:

1. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2005)], online as an 872 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj ;

2. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success” [Berliner (2009)], online as a 729 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

3. “To Improve Schools, Fight Poverty, Education Expert Says” [Gosier (2011)], online at http://bit.ly/qyrBSL - the expert is Stephen Krashen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen ;

4. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? ” [Hake (2011a,b)], online at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ and http://bit.ly/jy61UB;

5. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality” [Marder (2011a)], online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC;

6. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data, ” online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF [Marder (2011b)], online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF.

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To access the complete 15 kB article please click on http://bit.ly/ozuZEn.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi
http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com
http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. . . . . .[But]. . . As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the US, devise solutions, and test and implement them. Britain briefly tried to substitute public relations for aircraft safety and paid with the loss of its commercial aviation sector. I hope the United States can avoid a similar error, that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of the evidence before it is too late, that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”
Michael Marder (2011)


REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 12 Oct 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn. Post of 11 Oct 2011 19:59:34-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.